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WINNY

By Yusaku MATSUMOTO

COLORBIRD INC. - as SALES All rights, World

True Story - Completed 2023

A talented young director Yusaku Matsumoto and all-star cast render the true story of a brilliant software engineer unfairly arrested by Japanese police at the dawn of the Internet age. The lead character of Isamu Kaneko is played by Masahiro Higashide, star of Ryusuke Hamaguchi's ASAKO I&II (‘18).

- Year of production
- 2023
- Genres
- True Story, Drama
- Countries
- JAPAN
- Languages
- JAPANESE
- Budget
- 1 - 3 M$
- Duration
- 127 mn
- Director(s)
- Yusaku MATSUMOTO
- Cast
- Masahiro HIGASHIDE, Takahiro MIURA
- Synopsis
- At the dawn of the Internet in 2002, a brilliant computer engineer, Isamu Kaneko, develops an innovative file sharing software called “Winny”, which quickly earns a high market share just at a time when copyright infringement of movies and music was becoming a major problem. It leads eventually to the unprecedented arrest of Kaneko as a computer programmer. Should the creator of a technology be held liable when it is abused by others?
  Taking over Kaneko’s defense is Dan, a lawyer familiar with cybercrime, who is flabbergasted by Kaneko’s initial lack of crisis about the trial. Kaneko further complicates his case when he is manipulated into cooperating with the investigation and signs a false statement confessing that he developed Winny as a means for spreading piracy. Once indicted in a criminal case, it is difficult to win an acquittal. Rushing to his support, however, are many Internet users who believe in Kaneko's innocence, and donate large sums of money for his defense. Moved by the outpouring of support, Kaneko becomes determined to fight in court. His lawyer, Dan, is moved by Kaneko’s childlike innocence when talking about programming, and feels certain he can get an acquittal while also fearing that a guilty verdict will destroy digital technology development in Japan. So together with Kaneko, Dan vows to fight the case for the sake of future engineers, and the two promise each other to start up a space business once the trial is over.
  When a police officer becomes a whistleblower exposing an illicit police slush fund, it is a leak from Winny that provides the evidence. Kaneko and Dan then face an uphill battle against the aggressive tactics of the authorities until a police executive who led Kaneko's arrest issues contradictory testimony in court. That’s when the winds of fortune begin to change.